Hair Did

 How often do I get my hair cut?  It seems to be about every 2-3 years.  And sometimes, after I am done, I like the hair dresser to flat iron my hair, because, lets face it: I am entirely too lazy to do such a thing myself.  This particular haircut was no different.  I wasn't going very short this time, just a trim to keep the length, but keep it healthy.  When I scheduled the flat iron, I warned the hair dresser that I had very curly hair, and a lot of it.  Poor girl didn't take me 100% seriously.  They never do.  So after she cut off about 2 inches, and added in some layers, she busted out this fabulous new flat iron.  Ya'll, lemme tell you: I have had my hair done did a few times before.  But never has it felt this wonderful and awesome afterwards.  The steam + oil combination did wonders!  Not only did it straighten my hair in 1-2 passes, but it left it feeling soft and awesome.  Don't worry, this isn't a paid advertisement.  I just wanted to let you know when I come across something as magnificent as this.  However, one of these will not be in my near future for a few reasons.  A- I am too lazy to do this to my own hair.  2- Did you see how much the booger costs?  d- Please refer to A.

But the results people...  The results are magical!  Please note I am completely uncomfortable talking selfies.  Also, please do not pay attention to the crud on the mirror.  I took the pictures in the girls bathroom, where the light is the best, and...  well....  ya know.

 My sister and I often refer to our dream hair as "white people" hair.  And I am telling you, this was IT!  And it only took about 90 minutes...  Maybe a smidgen longer.

 Smoldering!

 This was a day or so later when my hair had hit its limit.  It was time for a wash.  But I wanted to show how long it still was in the back.  Things are slightly different now.  We couldn't tell at the time, but layers don't really work in my hair.  The pattern of the curl is such that the top gets kinky, and the bottom just hangs low and stringy looking.  So I went back about 3 weeks later and had her cut most of the layers out.  It means my hair is about 3 inches shorter, but looks much better.  And, if you happen to see me, don't be surprised when I say only 3 inches shorter.  Curly hair vs. straight hair is about a 6 inches difference.

Also, for point of reference, at some point over the weekend, Kelsey was crying and needed comfort, so I picked her up on my shoulder.  She must have been crying actual tears because where she was crying turned all curly again!

Don't worry.  I pulled out my old school flat iron and was able to get that small section back into shape.  I just thought it was kind of interesting :)

Backyard, The Grading

The gentleman that gave us the quote, let's call him Bob, said if he (Bob) couldn't grade the yard in 4 hours, that something was wrong.  This really surprised us, since "Joe" had originally given us a time line of 3 days.  We eventually got Joe down to 1 day, but that was still doing quite a bit of the work ourselves.  Whatever.  So, we took down all the trees and vines and cleaned up the fence line.  And we left you with this: 

That is pretty much the best before picture I can get.  Bob certainly was much more time efficient.  And he was more accurate as to the time.  It took him about 4 hours, with his 1 other helper, to grade the yard.

He tilled up or buried most of the weeds and grass again, and smoothed over the yard, where there were previously holes and ditches.

He also cut down almost 12 inches up on the side of the house and then graded the yard to the middle, so that the water has a path to follow around the house, instead of through and under it.

It is hard to see, but there is a small indention about the middle of the yard.

And this is the edge of our property, AKA: our tree dump.  This is where all the vines, branches, rocks, trees and pretty much any other lawn debris ended up.  I'm telling you, the picture just doesn't do it justice.

After Bob was done grading, we put up a few fence posts...

And then screwed in some prefab fence panels.  They may not be the highest of quality, but they were so deliciously easy to put up!  The fence posts...  yeah, there was some digging involved.  And that is never a good thing.  But, just look at how that whole brush pile just disappears!

Still not done yet, of course....

Last day of school

I am on a Before/After kick, so I might as well keep up with it :)  This is Kaitlyn at the beginning of 1st grade.

Super happy and ready to go. 

And this is her during the last week.  She decided to wear her pretty Sunday dresses during the last week of school, because they weren't doing PE and she didn't have to worry about it.

She also requested some pretty hair dos.

This is her happy face on the very last day of school.  Don't worry about the cinnamon on her face.  It was happy too ;)

 Pretty dress and pretty hair.  The last several days of school here are voluntary.  In that, after the awards ceremony, the teachers don't really do anything but clean up their rooms, and they don't count you as absent, so you don't have to go.  Since Kari has started school, the girls have stayed for every last minute.  By choice.  Hubby wonders if they truly belong to him ;)

And this is Kari on her first day of 3rd grade.

Cute crooked smile.

And this is her last day of school smile.  Does she look happy?  I think so!  Also, I love that their outfits are so completely representative of them.  Dresses for Miss Priss, and t-shirts and pants for Ms. Tomboy.

This is cute Kelsey's cute pony tail that will only last for a few seconds, since her hair isn't long enough to actually stay there.

And they were super happy to start the summer and have school be done for a while.

I, on the other hand, could already hear the I'm bored's coming my way.  Though my children are cute and say "I'm boring", which almost makes it worth it ;)  Ironically, as of writing this post, we have already shopped for school supplies, and new school outfits.  And school starts for us here down in the good ol' south in less than 2 weeks. 

And there was much rejoicing from the mother ;)

Compare/Contrast

Dylan and Kelsey have a special bond.  She runs and climbs into his bed at night when it is time for bed, and I have to drag her out, kicking and screaming.  Literally, most nights.  But, sometimes, they are super cute, and I break out the camera.  When I took some pictures the other day, it reminded me of some I took about a year ago.  So, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures to compare and contrast.  At this point, I am too lazy to look up the date, but I think they are about a year apart.

Before

After

Before

After

Before (such sweeties!)

After (Love those faces!)

From a mother's perspective, I think Dylan's face is thinning out a bit.  And Kelsey has more hair.  And teeth.

I love these two little stinkers!

Back yard, a Continuance

Last we left you with the backyard, we were into it.  Deep.  We had spent money, and not gotten a lot done.  We didn't know what were were going to do, or how we were going to do it, or when we were going to do it, how much of it we could finish.  It took about 6 weeks before we were able to work things out.  We finally found someone who would come and grade what was left of the yard for a decent price.  Ironically, we found it through a guy on Craigs list.  We were selling some things from the sheds, and one gentleman who bought something owns a small landscaping company.  He couldn't do it, but knew of a guy who could and gave us his number.  Kinda makes you want to sing "Its a small world after all!" doesn't it?

So he came out to look at the property and gave us a price and a date.  But, he said he wasn't qualified to clear the fence line.  *Sigh*  One of the few things that Joe did for us during his 8 hours of labor was to clear up and take down the big trees in the yard.  While he didn't clear up the vines or the fence line, he did at least do that.  So, hubby and I set our selves to do it ourselves.  Which stinks for hubby because this is the one part of the project he really really really didn't want to do.  So here is a before picture (but after Joe picture).  You can see a lot of the greenery is starting to come back, and that the weeds in the dirt are too.

Do you see all the vines on that fence, and up in those trees?

And all the over grown trees along the fenceline?

So, this is after.  I know, it is kinda hard to tell, but...  It took hubby and I (while the 4 chillens were inside with their 9 yr old babysitter) a day and a half to get all the trees cut down, the vines pulled, and then drag them across the yard to dump in a pile behind the soon to be put up fenceline.  1 and a half days of back breaking, sweaty, dirty hard word.  

Most of the debris we hauled up the yard and piled behind the soon to be existing fenceline.  But, towards the end, we had several vines and things that we just couldn't get up there anymore, so we piled them up and broke out the gasoline.  I am happy to say that we still have all of our eyebrows, but, it wasn't exactly the easiest to get started. 

This picture isn't completely representative, but my oh my was that a pile of stuff.  For reference, the peak of the shed is probably 10 feet tall, and you can see greenery up as high as the roof.  It was quite a bit of schtuff.

And that was where we ended that weekend.  Tired and dirty and gross, but one step closer, and one less job to do.  *Sigh*

So, before and after, the most significant shots.

To Be Continued.....

Teacher Appreciation: I'm Melting!!!

I have been admiring the melted crayon pictures that have been going around Pinterest for a while.  I thought they might be expensive, or difficult, and turns out, it wasn't really either.  I picked up a two pack of canvas at the craft store, so it was about $4 for each canvas.  Then I picked up some Crayola crayons to hot glue on top from Wallworld.  I got the extra super duper package for $5, but was able to divide it and use it on both canvases, so it was about $2.50 each.  I didn't peel the wrapping this time because when they crayons melt, I didn't want them to come off the glue.  I also bought the better crayons this time because the pinterest poster said they melted better than the generic stuff.

Than I had hubby pick up a heat gun for me from the Harbor Freight store down by his jobsite in FL.  Online, they said that you could do it with a hair dryer, but the heat gun was faster.  And, for $13, it wasn't that big of a deal.  I don't include this in the price of the project, mostly because I figure I will use it for so many other things, that it doesn't really count. 

So I went out in the workshop, and set up my own little melting booth.  I made sure to put something under the melting crayon, as it has to have have somewhere to, ya know, melt.

It really didn't take very long.  Like, less than 5 minutes.  I originally left the big blobs at the end of the crayon, but later melted them down smooth.  Look at those pretty melted colors!

Ta dah!  2 melted crayon canvases!  I thought they were incredibly pretty, but I wanted to do just a little bit more.

So I got some stickers and spelled their names out.  The sticker packet was also $5.

One for each teacher!

I am quite pleased with how they turned out!  And, to my surprise, it really didn't melt much of the crayon at all!

So, it was 1 + 1 + 2 + 1... not really.  Just a Clue reference :)

So it was 4 + 2.50 + 2.50= $9.  Pretty cute for less than $10!!!

Teacher Appreciation: C is for Crayon

Back when I had a computer, ya know, like 2 months ago, I pinterested a few things to do for the girls teachers for their teacher appreciation week.  I ended up doing about 5 gifts, but honestly, I don't recall all of them anymore. Not all of them were remarkable.  But there were two that I put a decent amount of time and energy into, and thought they turned out fairly creatively.  

The first one I started on was making a letter made of crayons.  First, I went through on my computer and found the font I liked.  Then I printed the letter off as big as I could.  I figured the kids should get in on some of the action as well, so I had them trace the letter onto a blank piece of paper and cut it out.  Why did you do that? you ask?  Well, I was going to glue the crayons directly onto the paper letter, and then glue the paper onto the background, so I didn't want it to be black.  I read on the website that this was the easier way to go about this project (and cleaner), so I followed the suggestion.

I had picked up these pine board at my local Hobby Lobby to use as backdrops.  They were $3 each(ish).  So, I set the girls to work sanding the sides down as they had a few rough spots.  

Then I let them paint the edges of the board.  You also get a preview of the letter.

Of course they didn't do everything exactly the way that I would have, but I think that is part of the beauty of letting the kids help :)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am cutting crayons.  I got 2 packs at the dollar store since I would be cutting them.  But I didn't like their wrappers, so I spent some time peeling them off.  And then, time for the cutting.  It was both harder than I thought it would be (serrated knife vs. wax....  who knew?) and messier than I wanted.

And my only real complaint was that I am incapable of keeping things straight.  If you look carefully, the crayons slant down...  By the way, how do you pronounce the word "crayon"?   I know some people pronounce it "crowns" but I got for "cray-ahn."

Then I spent some time with Mr Microsoft Word figuring out what worked best.  I liked this particular font because it looks like childish writing.  And I would have preferred to put the "is for" in the middle of each letter, but the G made that difficult to do.

Mod Podge on the white background, then glue on the crayon letters and voila!

For less than $5 each, I think they turned out cute!  They were messy, and somewhat difficult to get the correct curve on the cut end of the crayon that I wanted, but...  lesson learned for next time.